CHICO — “I was always an artist. I was getting ready to go to college for it when my counselor said, ‘You can’t be an artist. Russia just put a satellite in space. You’ve got to be someone that is going to help us defeat the Russians.’ So I went into industrial arts: electronics, welding, typesetting, woodwork, drafting … and finally, I said, enough of this: I’m going to be an artist. And so I took my first printmaking class with Janet Turner,” said printmaker Michael Halldorson on his artistic origins.

Halldorson, who has been involved in the local art community for 40 years, will be showing a variety of his fine art prints at the Upper Crust Bakery and Cafe until May 2.

According to Halldorson, his time with Turner sparked his passion for etching, a printmaking process that uses metal plates etched with acids to create reproducible images.

Now, Halldorson returns lessons learned under Turner’s tutelage, as a volunteer employee of the Chico State University printmaking department.

“One of my biggest joys is showing students different processes, and sharing the technical pitfalls that have befallen me and my work. It’s when a group of students walks out of the studio at the end of the evening and I’ve showed them a few tricks of the trade, and they say, ‘Thanks for your help’ — that’s my pay.”

Highlights of the show include “Oh Wire, Oh Wire, Can She Be,” a surrealistic, intricate intaglio etching of a woman’s torso made with chain-link fence containing dishwasher racks, and “Nocturne,” a painterly blue-black etching depicting trees at night using hardground wax and wash techniques.

On a visit to Holland in 1970, Halldorson had the privilege of meeting world-famous printmaker M.C. Escher, who has continued to inspire him with more ideas than he thinks he will ever have time to execute.

“You know that old saying, ‘You’re cursed if you’re an artist,’ because you have to earn a living, but you can’t not do your art. At some point in time an artist has to support his habit, so it’s nice when you sell a print. People ask me for commissions all the time: will you do my dog? my father? etc., and I say no. I have to feel it, otherwise it’s drudgery. And the creativity goes right out the window,” he said.

Regarding his years in Chico, he said, “I used to live like Tom Sawyer. I’ve been very, very fortunate, and too many people take it for granted.” Halldorson has given back to the community in myriad ways, including donating his prints to local nonprofits like Youth for Change, generating up to $30,000 in funds with art sales, and volunteering his time at Citrus Elementary School teaching fifth and sixth graders art.

“My kids love it. I show them books on Escher, their homework is to pick their favorite piece and tell me why.”

On the grand purpose of artmaking, he explained, “Well, you know, art is for the soul. Everything can’t be because Sputnik went up.”